Giant Freakin Robot

You know what I hated? History textbooks with timelines accompanying the beginning of the chapters. I remember getting quizzed on these before we even got into the chapter and learned about the events themselves. If that’s not an example of memorization over learning, I don’t know what is. The best kind of timeline is one in which you’re mostly aware of all the timestamps included, and their relativity to each other can be appreciated.

IGN made webpage-dragging history a while back by bringing the Ultimate Sci-Fi Movie Timeline into existence. It’s a well-crafted and beautiful drift through fictional time, with a quickly scrolling foreground set in front of a slowly scrolling background, giving it a vague 3-D feel.

From 2001: A Space Odyssey‘s 4,000,000-year-old sighting of the monolith, past the relative modernity of Escape From L.A., all the way to The Time Machine‘s childlike Eloi, you can view the time settings and brief synopses for dozens of films, some of which appear multiple times because time travel is a bitch, you know?

It would be something of an understatement to say that people have been talking a lot about Star Wars lately. The out-of-nowhere news that George Lucas was selling the Star Wars franchise would have been stunning enough, but when it was revealed that Disney was planning another trilogy and various spinoff movies? There had to be some glee-induced geek heart attacks out there. Well, while we’ll all spend the next few years speculating and greedily pouncing upon any Star Wars tidbit, you can plan a return to Lucas’ universe a lot sooner than 2015, courtesy of Dark Horse’s new Star Wars ongoing comic, which is set in the aftermath of the very first Star Wars film.

Written by Bryan Wood (DMZ, Northlanders) and featuring covers by Alex Ross, the new Star Wars series picks up right where Episode IV left off, with the Death Star demolished and Luke, Leia, Han, and Chewie heroes of the Rebellion. Wood explains that the comics will effectively pretend that it’s still 1977 and that they are being written from that point of view. Wood told The Nerdist that “in the characters’ minds, nothing has happened since the events of the first film. Luke and Leia don’t know they’re siblings, Vader doesn’t know Luke exists, and so on. Which is a challenge.”

To be a successful adaptation of a Stephen King novel or story, it’s much more important to transfer to the screen the heart and sentimental tone behind his words, rather than merely rehashing all the visually active bits. The problem is, he usually bulks up that sentiment with a miasma of characters and climaxes always in danger of imploding upon itself. But it isn’t always the case, and 2011′s 11/22/63 was a monster that gave itself to readers in full, never really asking anyone to tackle the Mental Labors of Hercules for absolute engagement. Furthermore, it was one of the more respectable endings that King has given us in some time.

For a more negative ending, director Jonathan Demme told The Playlist that he “had an option and I let it go. But I hope it’s moving forward. I really want to see that movie.” As excited as I would have been for anyone to be adapting it, Demme brought a level of credibility slightly higher than what Kimberly Pierce has brought to a Carrie remake that is looking less like the stupid idea it started out as.

In hindsight, I consider 11/22/63 to be a moving love story within historical fiction, which sounds like the most emetic genre ever. But the story of Jake Epping is entrenched in unexplained time travel, and the multitude of consequences one faces when trying to stop one of the most famous murders in American history, a murder that has inspired more fiction than there was fact to begin with, all while falling in love with someone who would be twice his age in the present. Things get complicated, and stay that way for a while.

Fans of videogames and traditional pen-and-paper role-playing games both had reason to be excited this past June when it was announced that a game was in the works based on the long-running cult-classic RPG, Cyberpunk 2020. Since that initial announcement, however, we haven’t heard much about the project. Now some new hints have arrived courtesy of the game’s official website, and they definitely sound promising.

Created by designed Mike Pondsmith back in 1988 (when it was initially called “Cyberpunk 2013”), the game has gone on to create 20-plus years’ worth of background and detail about its setting, a gritty near-future that fans of Blade Runner or Neuromancer would feel right at home in. That rich source material is fertile ground for a modern RPG videogame, and the fact that it’s being developed by CD Projekt Red, the folks behind the acclaimed Witcher games, just adds to the game’s potential. Even better, original creator Mike Pondsmith is working with the CDPR guys to ensure the game does its source material justice.

Set 50 years after the original game’s setting, Cyberpunk 2077 will build upon the strengths of both the tabletop RPG and CD Projekt Red’s talent for making engrossing games in which player choice makes a real impact on the shape of the game. As you’d expect from a Cyberpunk game, players will be able to fit out their character with tons of weaponry, implants, and other crazy tech. It will also have a “multi-threaded” narrative along the lines of the aforementioned Witcher games, or, if we want to stick in the same general genre, like BioWare’s acclaimed Mass Effect series. Bottom line: whether you’re a fan of the original RPG, CD Projekt Red’s games, or even just science fiction in general, this should be one to watch.